Notable New iPad Apps: Write for Dropbox

Last week Write for Dropbox, iPad edition hit the App Store. It’s another good text editor app for the iPad, with Dropbox sync and strong Markdown support.

The app’s full title in the App Store is Write for Dropbox – A Beautiful Note Taking App (iPad Edition) – but I’m just going to refer to it as Write from here on in this post.

To say that this app is feature-packed would be an understatement. Here’s its App Store feature list:

Write opens to a new blank note to quickly jot down things on your mind

Automatic Dropbox Syncing

Full background support for uploading notes to Dropbox. Notes will continue uploading to Dropbox even if you close the app

Clean distraction free interface

Create, edit and view text files on your iPhone and iPod Touch

Folder Support (upto 1 level deep)

Full Markdown support with ability to preview markdown even while writing

A special markdown toolbar to make writing in markdown easy

Insert images with absolute image URLs from your Dropbox account

Full screen writing and reading

Ability to click on links and phone numbers when in view mode

An exclusive cursor trackpad and swipe selection

Pull to Save and Pull to Delete

Favourite the files you use frequently and access them quickly

Quick look – A unique quick look inspired way to peek at contents of any file without opening it

Custom Fonts

Brightness Control within application

Night Mode

Offline Support – Upload your changes to Dropbox next time you’re connected

Import notes from other apps into Write

25+ inbuilt actions to share your notes

Publish as a Web Page

Generate Dropbox share link with a single tap

Save in Evernote, Google Drive, CloudApp

Virtually unlimited ways to share your note using Custom URL Schemes

It also offers Remote Keyboard and Remote Clipboard features that let you have two iOS devices working in tandem over a local WiFi network. I haven’t tried these out at all, and I’m not sure I have any great use case for them.

I have tried Write itself out a fair bit though. It definitely offers some cool features for those who write mostly or all in Markdown. For instance, there’s a quick toolbar to simplify Markdown formatting – that sits above the normal rows of the on-screen keyboard. This includes both some general useful symbols and some great Markdown characters – like @, “, ., ,, :,/, * , bold, italic, underline, H1, link, blockquotes, and buttons to insert image and preview Markdown. You can toggle Markdown preview on and off within a document with just a single tap.

There are a few clever UI features in Write too – like a pull to save gesture (it can also be used to delete, but I don’t find that very useful); and a long press with two fingers in the text area to pull up a popover with options for font selection, font size, brightness and more.

Although the app has a relatively clean UI, it;’s not as clean as rival apps like iA Writer and Byword. I feel more comfirtable overall using Byword and iA Writer due to their even cleaner and simpler UIs – and I should mention that Byword’s Markdown support is stellar too.

Write is another good text editor app for iPad and an especially attarctive option for those who use Markdown heavily.